


Hardened Edges

by Anonymouspotato



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mild Gore, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, This is 500 words of Caleb/Bren being sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22177795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymouspotato/pseuds/Anonymouspotato
Summary: He falls backwards in the bed in the inn, and covers his face in his hands. The strange mixture of grief and longing and regret weighs heavy in his chest like a stone. Her face is so like he remembered, but so not. Too many scars.
Relationships: Astrid/Bren Aldric Ermendrud
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Hardened Edges

He falls backwards in the bed in the inn, and covers his face in his hands. The strange mixture of grief and longing and regret weighs heavy in his chest like a stone. Her face is so like he remembered, but so not. Too many scars.

He can remember the feel of the one across her eye like it’s still under his thumb. Rough and stiff, like a callous.

He tries to close his eyes, but the burns on her neck are seared into the back of his eyelids. He had hurt her, he had hurt his parents, he’d hurt his friends, why does everything he holds dear go up in ash and smoke-

_Breath in. Breath out. Like Beau showed you._

He digs his fingernails into the meat of his palm, harsh pain sparking through his nerves like lightning. It keeps him grounded, in the here and now, pulls him away from the flames. It’s bad for him, but it works, so he doesn’t care.

Astrid’s eyes were so harsh and crisp, two tiny chips of ice pressed into her face when they’d reminded him of the morning dew in their youth. Everything about her was like that - sharper, more angular, like she’d been honed down. Like the edge of a weapon.

He can feel her mouth pressing warm, wet kisses to the side of his neck. Her hands running over his arms, soothing the sharp crackle of the crystals under his skin, the raw energy scraping and scrabbling at the inside of his skin like a rabid animal trying to escape.

Something in his hands breaks. Oh. His fingernails had pierced his skin. 

He watched red droplets burble up and press out of his veins. He was used to the sight of his own blood - even if he hadn’t already been, the Nein would’ve broken him of that particular type of squeamishness rather quickly. He’d been broken of a lot of things, back when he was Bren.

She had called him Bren. So had Ikithon.

Bren? Caleb? Is there even a difference here, with his past clinging to him like a wet cloak? He’s not sure of anything anymore. It feels like it did sixteen years ago, when no part of him was truly sacred. Everything was to be analyzed, broken down and reconstructed, made more perfect. Harsh, sharp, angular.

In the back of his head, he plays out a scene. It’s a living room, like the one he was in before, but the décor is shifted. There’s an oil painting of a cat on the wall. 

There’s a woman on the couch, with an unkempt blond braid and Xhorhasian robes and a hollow skittishness in her dewdrop eyes. There’s a bluebird with a playful fae glint in its eye - she’d always loved birds - and she’s playing with the laces of her boots.

In the doorway, watching her, is a man wearing formal Dwendalian clothes, copper hair cut close to his head, and bright eyes of ice. The image is easy - too easy.

He doesn’t remember when the image turns into a dream. He doesn’t remember when the dream becomes a nightmare. But when he wakes in a cold sweat, a scream dying on his lips, he remembers the image of sending a Fire Bolt down Nott’s throat, Trent smiling at his shoulder, all too well.

  
  



End file.
